Opening multiple apps with one icon/click

[Chris W]

Is there a way to open up more than one app at a time,
with one click or keystroke?
For example when I go onto the net I have to click my IE
icon (which gets me to my Google home page) but if I then
want to check my mail I have to separately click the
Outlook Express icon. Or vice versa.
And often when I'm working in Word, I then find I need
Excel to fire up too.
And when I'm scanning, one icon starts up the scanner
software, another one starts the OCR program.
I tried writing a simple batch file in Notepad but it
didn't do a thing. Maybe I got the script/syntax wrong...
Ideally I would like to be able to create icons that
would trigger a couple of progs at the same time.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Chris W

 

[Chad Harris]

This is not exactly what you're asking for if you need a script or batch
file to acess multiple programs, but you can use these to help:

Alt+tab: Switches forward between open apps. Displays a "coolswitch menu"
of your running applications. Switch between open applications. Hold down
the alt key and tab switches to the app you want. Release alt and it opens.

Alt+Shift+Tab: Switches backward betweeen open apps same way.

Alt+Escape: Cycles through open apps in order opened.

Chad Harris



______________________________________________________________________________

 

[Chris W]

Thanks, Chad, I do use those shortcuts once the apps are
open, but that's not my issue here. What I'm after is
some one-stop way of OPENING them together, i.e. firing
up the .exe files at the same time...
Tks anyway...

 

[David Candy]

In a batch file prepend start to the line (turns it to a windows command line rather than command prompt command line)

start "" "c:\windows\system32\notepad"

In a shortcut

cmd /c command1&command2&command3

Note command 2 waits for command 1 to finish. Use Start to change

cmd /c start "" "c:\windows\system32\notepad"&start "" "c:\windows\system32\notepad"